2014 WiSAR GIS Year in Review: Map Tour

Click on the link: Map Tour

In the year 2014, great advances were made in the use of geographic information systems for wildland search rescue. 

• MapSAR and IGT4SAR were used to support a number of missing person search operations
• Workshops were held across North America
• There were several peer-review publications on the use of GIS in WiSAR
• The US National Park Service has recognized the GIS Specialist role as a necessary incident command structure position during search operations

More important than the updates in technology, policy, or science, is the connection between the great people driving this movement. We have so much to celebrate - excellent work everyone and thank you for time and dedication to such a noble cause.

However, while much was accomplished this year, the reality is, GIS is still not widely used in missing person search operations and other SAR functions. 

What can we do in 2015 as a volunteer community to increase the adoption of GIS as a critical SAR function in North America and abroad? 

• Develop simple to use geo-enabled applications for mission critical tasks? 
• More SARGIS workshops? 
• Form a recognized non-profit organization with operational capacity to help when needed? 
• Present to emergency management and law enforcement agencies? 
• Lobby to federal governments for more support?
• Strengthen the alliance with GIS volunteers like GISCorps, MapAction, MAPS? 
• Create a research and development center for WiSAR GIS? 

These are all ideas that have been discussed and are always on my mind. Now that the SARGIS Discussion Group has reached +600 members across the world I truly believe we have reached the critical mass to make global change. 

I think we can all agree, that someday, when a person goes missing, the use of GIS for planning, operations, logistics, command, and public information will be the "standard of care". Imagine that your loved one (a relative, a spouse, your child) was missing - how would you want the search management team to use geographic information?

Let's make 2015 a spectacular year and have a great time doing it - so that others may live... 



Please add comments below if you think we missed an event, have a case-study you think should be highlighted, or have ideas on how we can make a bigger impact. 

Webinar: Mission Reporting and Search and Rescue Mapping for the MRA

Thanks to Pigeon Mountain Industries (PMI), Jon Pedder and I were able to brief the WiSAR Community on how the Mountain Rescue Association is using GIS to record mission data and we also discussed possibilities for how GIS could be used in the future. 

Here is the link to the PMI recording: http://pmirope.com/media/2014/12/02/mra-webinar-series-mission-reporting-and-search-and-rescue-mapping-for-the-mra/ 

"The Mountain Rescue Association has access to a mapping system called ArcGIS Online http://msar.maps.arcgis.com/home/ and it has been configured for the MRA Mission Reporting initiative. We will cover how this is being used for mission reporting and how it could be used to support operations, especially missing person search operations. The presenters, Paul Doherty and Jon Pedder, are both members of the Esri Disaster Response Program. Paul Doherty, PhD is the Technical Lead for the Program. He has 4-years with Yosemite Search and Rescue, and is also an active researcher who focuses on the use Geographic Information Systems for Search and Rescue. Jon Pedder is the newest member of the Esri Disaster Response Program and has 9-years volunteering with the Sierra Madre Search and Rescue Team." 

Here are some training videos created for the MRA Members.

#AFAC2014 in Wellington, New Zealand

It is good to be back with EMSINA Group at the AFAC Conference, this time in Wellington New Zealand. I am learning a ton about fire, emergency management, USAR, and LandSAR GIS activity in Australasia. 

Fire GIS Legend, Mark Garvey

Here are the highlights.

1) New Zealand Fire Service demonstrated their ability to deploy rapidly as a USAR team without sacrificing Geographic intelligence. They call it "Portal in a Box" which is a hardened kit that contains ArcGIS Server / Portal that connects to Collector and Operations Dashboard. When they get internet setup through their built in BGAN system, they can quickly connect to their ArcGIS Online account for sharing situational awareness with other agencies.

NZ Fire and their "Portal in a Box"

2) Eagle Technology introduced me to a number of Land Search and Rescue agencies that are beginning to implement MapSAR / IGT4SAR for lost person search incidents. In addition I shared information with them about SAR Explorer for getting started with using GIS for SAR. I am extremely impressed by Youth SAR who are teaching themselves GIS and beginning to provide their skills during Search incidents.  

3) The EMSINA Team continues to provide great awareness to government agencies in Australasia about mobile apps and GIS resources that are already available to them - just not being utilized during emergency operations. GeoCove, AAMGroup, Noggin, and Red Bluff Spatial were all here demonstrating their GIS Solutions & expertise as well. 

This was a great trip and I look forward to seeing all of the community development in the next year. New Zealand is amazing I can't wait to come back.

Red Rocks south of Wellington

2014 SAR Special Interest Group Meeting

This is just a quick recap of items discussed at our Search and Rescue Special Interest Group Meeting at the 2014 Esri International User Conference in July. 

• An update on MapSAR / GISCorps pilot project. There was a lot of interest and it sounds like it is time to expand beyond California!
• An update from Caroline Rose on her MS Project. She is looking to interview more SAR personnel on the types of mapping solutions they currently use so we can design better solutions in the future (ie "MapSAR 3.0"). 
• Karyn Tareen spoke about  opportunities to collaborate and learn from other workflows eg USAR, Damage Assessment. She and her GeoCove team have already pioneered some  new workflows.
• Robert Koester has secured funding to continue building out the ISRID Database. 
• D4H has added support for the International Search and Rescue Incident Database and MapSAR!
• A brief update on SARGIS6 East and West. There were a lot of similar themes discussed and everyone seemed very happy with the collaboration between the two locations. 

If you were there or have questions - please feel free to add comments!

Here is a map of attendees.

View larger map

USGS Historical Topographic Map Explorer for Search and Rescue

While we always want to use the most up to date maps (a Local GIS-produced basemap, World Topographic, Open Street Map)  for our missing person search operations - there are times when historic maps are necessary for our investigation. For instance what if your missing person was believed to be carrying a historic map - you might want to interpret the landscape through the same map they were using. 

This dynamic map allows you to view and download historic quad maps based on location - this could be a very useful tool for Search and Rescue in the US! 

Check it out: USGS Historical Topographic Map Explorer

1) Type in a place and click on the map
2) Click timeline maps to view in main window

3) Slide transparency on map to compare, or drag/drop to re-order maps

The downloads appear to be available as geo-pdfs only - but these may be converted to more GIS friendly formats (.tif). I look forward to hearing if any teams have used this resource and any feedback they may have. 

If you simply want a seamless USGS Topo - this is already a layer in ArcGIS Online that can be used as a basemap in ArcGIS Desktop or ArcGIS Online while connected to the internet.


View Larger Map

If you are looking for the USGS topographic maps to run locally in ArcMap - most states have a download page for pulling the digital raster graphics (DRGs). I have also heard that Matt Jacobs from CalTopo can show how to use the seamless tiles he has produced inside your GIS. 

However - basemaps should always be suspect to currency and  used in conjunction with your local minimum essential dataset (read Chapter 3).

Thanks USGS for making data open and easier to find!

#SARGIS6 Discussion and Report

This blog post highlights the activities and topics covered in the 6th Annual Search and Rescue GIS Meeting. The meeting was held simultaneously in Dunsmuir, California and Morgantown, West Virginia. The final agenda can be found here: https://esri.box.com/SARGIS6Agenda

MapSAR Training - Thursday and Friday

We kicked off the week on Thursday morning at the Dunsmuir High School with the Yosemite ("Clark SAR") Tutorial. There were both GIS Professionals and SAR Professionals (most with little or no GIS experience) in the room. The students were able to complete the tutorial in one day and get through the basics of MapSAR. Excellent instruction was provided by Jared Doke, Caroline Rose, Rick Laing, and Dave Hansen from the GISCorps. On Friday we then started from scratch and launched MapSAR to respond to a fictional scenario on Mount Shasta, the "Hunter SAR". 

Friday Evening

After some free time to check out the town of Dunsmuir and an open house at FireWhat Headquarters we went to the theater for a keynote address on WiSAR GIS Research and an introduction to the FireWhat Team. This was followed by some live music, dessert, and a raffle on top of the Dunsmuir Hotel rooftop. 

Saturday

Beautiful Mount Shasta was a great backdrop for our meeting.

For the rest of the conference we spent time up at the Mount Shasta Ski Park after a great interpretive talk from Nick Meyers, Mount Shasta Ranger. On Saturday Morning we received a MapSAR update from Jon Pedder and were introduced to the Antris Registry by Kaila Beattie. Then we heard some excellent lightning talks:

• Who are the GISCorps? Dave Hansen
• Using GIS for Kansas USAR Jared Doke
• Why don’t we all just use GIS? Caroline Rose 
• Remote Support for WiSAR Don Ferguson
• Using cell phone analysis for WiSAR George Durkee

In the afternoon - we used our "Hunter SAR" scenario to try out some new technology in conjunction with MapSAR. We published our incident data to an ArcGIS Online web map and launched the Collector for ArcGIS for mobile data collection. We also used DeLorme inReach devices for situational awareness in the field - we always knew the location of our teams. 

Finally - we tied all of this information together using the Operations Dashboard to track team status and instantly view photos of clues from the field. This is the first time we have tried this integration and it worked quite well. We still used the paper maps from MapSAR as a fail-safe method to make sure teams had the information they needed in the field. 

For free training on this new technology:

• Creating Hosted Map Services with ArcGIS Online
• Smartphone GIS: Capturing Data with Collector for ArcGIS
• Offline Data Collection Using Collector for ArcGIS
• Monitoring Data Using Operations Dashboard for ArcGIS

Sunday

Finally, we finished off the meetings with presentations:

• Missing Aircraft Search in Arkansas Wes Cleland (click on link to view presentation)
• Missing Persons w/ Alzheimer in British Columbia Rick Laing
• The MRA Mission Collection Project Paul Doherty
• What’s new with IGT4SAR? Don Ferguson (click on link to view presentation)

Both days of the meeting were shared via webcast with SARGIS East. Despite technical difficulties most of the presentations were recorded and available (I am working on converting these videos into a viewable format right now).

What did we learn? What's next?

1. It is time to present what the SARGIS community has to offer to agencies that have jurisdiction, not just the volunteers
2. We need to simplify deployment of MapSAR / IGT4SAR workflows for Day I of operations
3. We need to move MapSAR / IGT4SAR to one code-sharing framework (GitHub)
4. How do we implement remote support procedures?
5. Should the WiSAR GIS group become a non-profit (5013c) organization?
6. UAV/S have a role in WiSAR - but it is yet to be determined how they can be used effectively, we need to do more research

We are looking forward to SARGIS7 and potential locations have already been discussed (Simon Fraser University, University of Wisconsin - Madison, Estes Park, Dunsmuir, CA).

Look for updates from SARGIS East soon as well.

Please continue the discussion or ask followup questions from the presenters on the SARGIS Discussion Group.

Search and Rescue GIS at #SARCON2014

The last stop of my Eastern US tour brought me to New Jersey for the MRA / NASAR 2014 Search and Rescue Conference. New Jersey Search and Rescue are pioneers in search operation mapping and communication - so this was the perfect place to talk about the importance of GIS in wildland search and rescue. The conference was very well run and a great time to connect with friends and learn more about what others are doing.

Don Ferguson gave an excellent talk about minimum essential data for situational awareness and spatial analysis during search operations. He also showed the power of spatial analysis, such as travel cost modeling for increasing your theoretical probability of area. 

Captain Pollackov from FDNY GIS provided a detailed account of how GIS was used for Hurricane Sandy and the Super Bowl, as well as a sneak preview of how FDNY will be using GIS in the future. Our friends at ICE-SAR were very impressed. 

Jon, Jennifer, Jason, Don, Cole and myself were extremely busy at the Esri booth providing mini training sessions to old friends, but also many MRA and NASAR Teams that have not begun implementing GIS into their operations. I also presented and discussed the MRA Mission data collection system using ArcGIS Online. Here is a link to the training videos if you have not seen them already. 

Finally, during the SAR Games activities on Friday, we teamed up with our friends at DeLorme to test the integration of InReach, Collector for ArcGIS, and the Operations Dashboard for real-time tracking and operational mapping. We showed this on live maps in both the Hilton command post and remote command post at High Point State Park. During this time I also hung out with the Alpha SAR Team and discussed the future of GIS in their operations.  

Overall, here is what I learned this year at SARCON2014:

1) The common theme across the Arkansas SAR, ASRC, MRA, and NASAR communities is the concept of remote support for search operations. 
2) Disconnected capabilities are a must - you must be able to support your operation with no internet access for at least 72 hours. However, there are creative ways to leverage support from outside the command post...
3) In general, little work has been done using GIS outside of search operations. I have not spoken with a single team that has incorporated GIS into preventative search and rescue (PSAR) or rescue response (optimal siting of resources, suitability analysis, etc). 

I look forward to giving a more detailed report at the SARGIS6 Meeting in a few weeks!

ps beware of the Alaskan Embassy and anything offered to you in another language.